In our first article in this series, we looked at a serious challenge facing government agencies: falling success rates in producing records in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Between 2010 and 2022, these requests went from successfully yielding records about half the time to only about 10% of the time. One of the biggest reasons: given the proliferation of both new government records and FOIA requests, the sheer logistics of finding, retrieving, and producing requested records has become far more operationally challenging.
So, what can government agencies do to facilitate records retrieval and improve the Open Government principles of transparency and openness?
Fully Implement Electronic Records Management (ERM)
Agencies should not only adopt ERM systems but also ensure these tools are capable of handling the complexities of modern government operations. Proper ERM tools can facilitate quicker access to records, more efficient processing of FOIA requests, and better compliance with transparency mandates.
For help evaluating ERMs, read our guide on ERM selection criteria. For a more in-depth look at how electronic records management facilitates FOIA requests specifically, read our article on that topic.
Update the Freedom of Information Act
As technology evolves and the volume of government records increases, the policies that govern records requests must also adapt. “It has been 8 years since FOIA laws were last revised,” says Dena Kozanas, an associate general counsel and chief privacy official at MITRE, which manages federally funded research and development centers on behalf of various U.S. government agencies. “FOIA should be updated again to create a uniform compliance framework for all agencies subject to the law, similar to how the National Institute of Standards and Technology offers a standardized cybersecurity and privacy compliance framework.”
Create an Action Plan for Clearing FOIA Request Backlogs
“Those agencies with over a thousand backlog requests [should] develop actionable plans to reduce the backlogs,” says Jay McTigue, the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) Director of Strategic Issues. He recommends developing action plans that include specific and credible goals, performance measures, and timeframes for implementing concrete actions. Specificity is important: when the GAO evaluated such plans at 14 agencies, only two included specific goals and only one included any performance metrics. None included timelines. Absent these elements, these plans lose actionability and risk going un-executed.
Train Staff and Deploy Additional Resources
If staff capabilities or resources are imposing constraints on the ability to meet records requests, those are the first problems to solve. Provide adequate training for staff on the importance of transparency and how to effectively use ERM systems; too few people assigned to records retrieval, or people who don’t know what they’re doing, will dramatically slow records request fulfillment. Additionally, allocating sufficient resources to manage the increased volume of both records and FOIA requests is essential. For more help, here are “5 Tactics When the Records Management Work that Needs To Be Done Outstrips the Resources Available To Get It Done.”
About PSL
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